JEROME CARDAN 55 



cast the horoscope of Jesus Christ, a feat which sub- 

 sequently brought upon him grave misfortune ; a few 

 patients came to him, moved no doubt by the spirit 

 which still prompts people suffering from obscure 

 diseases to consult professors of healing who are, 

 either in revolt or unqualified in preference to going 

 to the orthodox physician. In connection with this 

 irregular practice of his he gives a curious story 

 about a certain Count Borromeo. "In 1536, while I was 

 attending professionally in the house of the Borromei, it 

 chanced that just about dawn I had a dream in which I 

 beheld a serpent of enormous bulk, and I was seized 

 with fear lest I should meet my death therefrom. Shortly 

 afterwards there came a messenger to summon me to 

 see the son of Count Carlo Borromeo. I went to the 

 boy, who was about seven years old, and found him 

 suffering from a slight distemper, but on feeling his 

 pulse I perceived that it failed at every fourth beat. 

 His mother, the Countess Corona, asked me how he 

 fared, and I answered that there was not much fever 

 about him ; but that, because his pulse failed at every 

 fourth beat, I was in fear of something, but what it 

 might be I knew not rightly (but I had not then by me 

 Galen's books on the indications of the pulse). There- 

 fore, as the patient's state changed not, I determined on 

 the third day to give him in small doses the drug called 

 Diarob : cum Turbit: I had already written my pre- 

 scription, and the messenger was just starting with it to 

 the pharmacy, when I remembered my dream. ' How 

 do I know,' said I to myself, ' that this boy may not be 

 about to die as prefigured by the portent above written ? 

 and in that case these other physicians who hate me so 

 bitterly, will maintain he died through taking this drug.' 

 I called to the messenger, and said there was wanting in 



